171–180 of 194 posts
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When someone “swears under the penalty of perjury” something that is inaccurate, and the legal system does make it simple to apply that penalty, there’s something wrong with the legal system.
> and the legal system does make it simple to apply that penalty I assume you're missing a word there?
If it is in error, I am curious how much work it would take to get that perjury result though.
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In college we had to use them. It was a financial burden on myself. $100/course essentially. Our school mandated that we take homeworks using Pearson's online system. This means if you found a used copy of the book it was essentially waste. You needed to have a one-time-use code (printed on the book) to do your homework. If you didn't, you'd essentially fail the class. Also, the system was buggy. The entire thing is…
Why is education like this in the US? Is it the teachers who willingly allow students to spend so much unnecessarily? Is it the admins? Do they get paid to do this stuff?
All of my courses with smaller class sizes were much more careful with their book selections; occasionally those books were still expensive (even used), but only if they were really the best tool for the job. Even with expensive books though, this kind of online subscription nonsense was never used.
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> Testing companies do not lobby to get standardized tests mandated where they were not. Yes, they do. > The federal government mandates this as a requirement for federal money. Sure, some mandates come from the federal government; others are from state governments, and still others from local governments. Guess who lobbies legislators making those decisions, especially at the federal level, but also at the state lev…
Assume what you said is true, guess what will happen if they don't lobby? Same.
The notice is here: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2021/04/2021-04-2... Kevin Wayne (repo owner presumably) is listed as co-author on the book that is published by Pearson, who have issued the notice. https://www.pearson.com/us/higher-education/program/Sedgewic...
Yours sincerely, [private] Internet Investigator On behalf of: Pearson Education, Inc. ------------------------------------ Seems like another glorious victory of the overzealous online copyright strikers. Nothing out of the ordinary, will likely get sorted out in a day or two.
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Not to mention some of them have wonderful anti-features, such as physical books that have a handful of online-only chapters that you can only access if you buy the textbook new, thereby reducing the value of used copies.
You'll then appreciate the "Pearson New International Editions" (with a chapter and the preface removed to tank the resale value).
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I very clearly said pearson and others in the space. If reviews can be done by psychometricians, why test building cannot ? There are many many qualified professionals affiliated with major universities- several of them owned by the state. Is it difficult to imagine them developing the tests? Many of these same professionals consult with testing companies for building the tests, so it is not like these companies have…
You are just imagine things as an outsider. Testing companies not only have the best psychometricians and they have many many psychometricians and stasticians work for them. Yes. University professors do consulting works. How do they have the capacity to build a product as professional companies do? ...
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The question, then, is why not have the state university build the tests and write the textbooks? Then you fund the actual creation once and can straightforwardly fund updates and alterations as needed.
State universities are not good at doing either. There are not enough psychometricians or test writers or textbook writers in psychology or curriculum and instruction departments. State government is not better at doing things than big companies. Hope your solution is not to ask the government to do everything.
If you're just looking for the algorithms, there's always this C# port (from 7 years ago): https://github.com/angellaa/algs4 Interestingly, the README includes an e-mail exchange with Kevin, who noted the code is GPL
Found this in the link you provided. As you can see from the code there is a GPL license footer on each file.
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> Assume what you said is true, guess what will happen if they don't lobby? Same. Obviously, they disagree, or they wouldn’t spend money lobbying, which isn’t something companies do just to burn money. They do it because they expect RoI on the money spent lobbying.
Can you give an example what will happen if states do not use standardized tests?
Compared to any of the individual incremental mandates? They’ll have a lower ratio of cost to instructional time and a more efficient educational system, probably. While the requirements are often tied to consequences, they are rarely tied to the kond of systemwide analysis of results against other factors and process improvement that would make them systematically useful rather than theater. They are generally “accountability” measures that assume without any empirical basis that the results are within the control of the entity held accountable and that the consequences attached will force decisionmakers to make changes that result in optimization of the results.
Oh, and standardized testing companies will make less money. Hence the lobbying.
Not totally unrelated: Pearson is a piece of trash company. They sell very overpriced textbooks and always use DRM in online copies. They lobby for standardized tests in states and get them mandated. Students are put through them. And guess who provides the certificate required by teachers to evaluate those exam copies? Yes, Pearson. And they make a ton of money. Please watch this talk for more context (even if you d…
In college we had to use them. It was a financial burden on myself. $100/course essentially. Our school mandated that we take homeworks using Pearson's online system. This means if you found a used copy of the book it was essentially waste. You needed to have a one-time-use code (printed on the book) to do your homework. If you didn't, you'd essentially fail the class. Also, the system was buggy. The entire thing is…
And it's especially prominent in math courses for students who don't know nor want to learn math.